Spotlights

Professor Authors Book on Psychology of Perpetrators

A new book by Otterbein University Professor Robert N. Kraft presents a compelling study of how ordinary people commit extraordinary acts of violence and how perpetrators and victims manage in the aftermath. Violent Accounts: Understanding the Psychology of Perpetrators through South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was released by New York University Press on March 21.

“Instances of widespread cruelty and violence occur in the world on a regular basis, and each time we hear about them, they seem shocking and inexplicable,” said Kraft, a professor of cognitive psychology at Otterbein. “To me, one of the great problems for psychology is to understand how people can commit such destructive acts of violence. This book reveals what actually went through the minds of violent perpetrators – in their own words – as they tell about their destructive actions of the past. It also tells how victims and perpetrators try to reconcile in the aftermath of such violence.”

Don Foster of the University of Cape Town called Violent Accounts, “A sophisticated and impressive study…. It adds considerably to our knowledge of perpetrators of violence as well as the process of restorative justice.”

Roy F. Baumeister, author of Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, said the book, “Provides a compelling and fascinating glimpse into the mental states of people who commit heinous, morally shocking crimes…. Promotes a profound understanding of what human beings are capable of doing – and of how they do things that in retrospect are indefensible. This book is a great contribution to the psychology of what drives typical, well-meaning individual human beings to perpetrate evil.”

Mary Brydon-Miller of the University of Cincinnati called the book, “A signature contribution to the literature on the phenomenology of memory and on the psychology of violence…. a must-read for policy makers….”